Tag Archives: Workshop

Making Lewes’s autumn 2017 series of talks turned into an impromptu mini-festival, though happening over a longer than usual six-week time frame. The title referred to Making Lewes’s range of themes encompassed by the talks. The six evening events, running from late September through to early November, were hosted in Lewes’s newest arts venue, Fitzroy House. A one-time Victorian library, by George Gilbert Scott – architect of St Pancras Station Hotel – its Neo-Gothic atmosphere is particularly powerful in the main octagonal library room where the talks were held.

We welcomed Anne Mette Hjortshøj all the way from the Baltic Sea island, Bornholm, known across Europe as a centre for crafts and particularly, ceramics.

Anne Mette’s warmly appealing talk, about her and the island’s pottery traditions, told with a lightness of touch easily won over the Lewes audience. Alongside Anne Mette, Lewes’s very own Tanya Gomez gave an equally absorbing talk about her ceramic works and the connections with the sea and traveling. Both speakers were part of the larger Making Lewes – Collaborative Kaleidoscope launch event, mixing a sit-down vegetarian supper in between talks, along with a showcase exhibition of invited Sussex potters titled Cooked, Baked and Fired Again.

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Our next two evenings were given over to architects, though very different types of architects. Nabeel Hamdi is internationally recognised in the development field for his work on participatory processes and community engagement in housing and other building projects in many parts of the developing world. Hamdi’s talk, titled Building a Humanitarian Architecture: Deciding Interventions, was lapped up by an audience of committed Lewesians.

The following week Duncan Baker-Brown, Lewes’s very own high profile eco-architect and one half of BBM Sustainable Architecture, packed Fitzroy House out so that we were having to turn folks away even before the evening started. The night was in effect a book launch for his recently published The Re-Use Atlas, ML partnering with Baker-Brown. The talk profiled projects across different – if primarily European – parts of the world, which are leading the way towards realising the circular economy, through re-use, upcycling and Cradle-to-Cradle approaches to sustainability. The audience were sent home dreaming of how Lewes might also, maybe actually really,enact one or two of these inspiring examples.

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Following on from the Baker-Brown evening, ML temporarily rehoused itself in Studio Hardie’s workshop at the far end of the Phoenix Estate for a double bill of woody related evening talks. This again was a partnership, this time with Ditchling Arts + Crafts Museum. The two speakers were Fred Baier, one of the true originals of the furniture making and design world, and the young Polish artist, Anna Bera, who had literally just completed her art residency at the museum, the previous dat. Baier gave a characteristically one-off and unique window into his work and life, mixing comedy and gravitas and leaving the audience rolling in the ailses, and calling out for an encore. Before this Bera had talked in conversation with the British Council’s Gian Luca Amadeil. ML’s audience headed for home with a warm glow on their faces, and probably in their hearts as well.

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Earlier in the afternoon Bera and ML’s artist member Zuky Serper ran a very successful open Pop Up workshop in the Linklater Pavilion on the Railway Land Nature Reserve. Both artists have long worked with children, and it was particularly re-affirming to see and hear so many children with their parents, intently hammering, sawing, knocking and generally bashing away.

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Back in Fitzroy House, the fifth and penultimate of the talks was again all about children, though also about how children and adults can co-learn together. Emily Charkin from WIlderness Wood, talked about her and her lapsed architect partner Dan Morrish’s reason’s for taking over Wilderness Wood in Hadlow Down and turning it into an experiment in open wild learning. Charkin’s Learning through Building talk made a persuasive case for the creativity and learning whichhappens when children – and adults – work, make, and build together in the outdoor without walls world. Charkin’s children, who she invited to also talk, spoke confidently about the experience from their perspectives, making a yet more persuasive case for wild learning happening down in the woods.

Finally, all the way from Reykjavik, Iceland, Hans Johannsson, arrived to give a mind-expanding presentation on violin-making in the 21st century. The wild northern island’s principle luthier, Johannsson has also turned his attention to a series of experiments aimed at broadening the understanding of both what violins could be in the new century – why no art nouveau violin, why no modernist violin? He asked – and answered universal questions about the nature of sound and tone. Johannsson, a master craftsman and maker, is an inspiring illustration of just how far one can go with radical sonic ideas and technologies, while maintaining a fundamental link with the craft, if the curiosity and culture of questioning is there. It may have been the most ambitious of the talks conceptually given over the six weeks, but it left those present thought-provoked about the role, nature and possibilities of what it means to be a maker or crafts-person, if imagination and a taste for adventure are present and willing.

Emily Charkin is one half of the husband and wife partnership, who have turned Wilderness Wood in Hadlow Down, Sussex, into an inspirational and thriving centre for children and adults to learn and work together.

Charkin will explore the educational value of the experience of co-making and building for both children and adults, alongside Wilderness Wood’s place within the radical education tradition. For anyone interested in active learning beyond the classroom walls and school gates.

Talks are free though with a £5 suggested donation (to support continuing Making Lewes programming)

All are welcome to Wonky Toys & Wild Children. A wooden toy making workshop for children accompanied by an adult, and adults nursing their inner child. The workshop is led by Zuky Serper and Anna Bera, following Serper’s popular workshop in the Turkish Baths during Make Lewes Festival 2016.

The workshop is in partnership with Ditchling Arts + Crafts Museum, and is part of Making Lewes’sCollaborative Kaleidoscope series of events. Booking available here.

September 29th – Anne Mette and Tanya Gomez

Anne Mette Hjortshøj is one of Bornholm’s leading potters, the Danish Baltic Sea island with a worldwide ceramics and craft culture reputation.

Tanya Gomez – Over the last ten years Gomez has been developing a dedicated following for her ceramic work, gaining recognition nationally and was a recent recipient of an Arts Council Grant for a showcase piece at this years Crafts Council’s Collect Open show.

October 6th – Nabeel Hamdi

Hamdi is Emeritus Professor of Housing and Urban Development at Oxford Brookes University. Hamdi’s focus is social, urban housing and international development and is known across the development sector. He has provisionally titled his talk Building a Humanitarian architecture: Deciding Interventions.

October 13th – Duncan Baker-Brown

Baker-Brown is a co-founder of the respected Lewes based BBM Sustainable Design studio, architect of the Wastehouse, (which highlights re-use and recycling in building materials), and author of recently published The Re-Use Atlas. The evening is centred around his new book.

October 20th Fred Baier, Furniture Maker + Anna Bera

(at Studio Hardie, Phoenix Works, Lewes BN7 2PE)

Fred Baier – Internationally renowned furniture maker, Baier pioneered the use of computer aided design in furniture making in the 1980’s, and has been at the forefront of drawing together analogue and digital making in the decades since. Baier’s talk is titled Form Swallows Function – crossing the analogue/digital divide.

Anna Bera, Polish artist and the British Councilʼs European programmes manager Gian Luca Amadei in conversation.

Bera is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft current artist-in-residence as part of their autumn exhibition, New Truth to Materials: Wood. From Poland, Bera is particularly interested in natural materials, and has worked using wood on her Wild Children projects.

October 20th – 15.30 – 17.30 – Wonky Toys and Wild Children Workshop

(at the Linklater Pavilion, Railway Ln, Lewes BN7 2FG)

An ‘all are welcome’ Wonky Toys workshop for children accompanied by an adult led by Lewes artist Zuky Serper with Anna Bera, reprising Zuky’s very successful workshop during the Make Lewes Festival 2016 in the Turkish Baths.

The workshop and talks evening are in partnership with Ditchling Arts + Crafts Museum

October 27th Emily Charkin

Charkin is one half of the partnership, who have turned Wilderness Wood in Hadlow Down into an inspirational centre for children and adults to learn together through outdoor self-building and making. With extensive educational experience Charkin’s talk will explore the educational value of making and building for children and Wilderness Wood’s place within the radical education tradition.

November 3rd– Hans Johannsson

Johannson is Iceland’s principal stringed instrument and violin-maker, living and working in Reykjavik. Alongside the craft of traditional violin making, Johannsson has also developed a series of twenty first century violins and other stringed instruments, collaborating with fellow Icelandic artists and musicians, including Olafur Eliasson.

A Maker Space for the 21st Century

Making Lewes is developing plans for an original and distinctive Lewes Maker Space.

With Lewes District Council’s rethink decision on the future of the Turkish Baths (see here), on thursday, 23rd February 2017, Making Lewes will be submitting a more detailed proposals for our envisaging of the Maker Space.

Download our first draft lewes-maker-space-v1and let us know what you think. Email us if you want to get involved – info@makinglewes.org

The Lewes Maker Space will be a community and educational hub for the town and environs while also acting at the national and international level.

Join us at the Foundry Gallery on Saturday 3 October at 11am for a hands-on workshop exploring what making means, how we feel about it, and whether it can promote change in the world. We’ll be using Lego and other simple materials to make some things, discuss our making practice, and share ideas and experiences in the company of other makers.

This workshop is for anyone involved in making or creativity using traditional or digital tools, creative software for making music or graphics, websites for learning skills or sharing projects, such as Etsy, Youtube, or Instructables.

The workshop will be led by the team at Digital DIY, a research project by University of Westminster.

This workshop is free, but spaces are limited, so please sign up here.

Kristoffer Tejlgaard will lead a geodesics model-making workshop during the main workshop. He will also be giving a public talk on the 25th September – 19.30 – 21.30 at the Turkish Baths. Details here.

Following the success of MLF’s Collaborative Collisions last year, this year’s improvisational workshop will draw together a diverse group of makers, crafts people, and designers to meet a design challenge integrating plastics, paper and other found materials from the Turkish Baths.

After a highly successful workshop last festival, Kinship design & make workshop will happen again at the Studio Hardie Workshop. Kinship is co-partnered by William Hardie of Studio Hardie and Sally Daniels of the University of West of England’s Architecture Department & Tangentfield.

Up to twenty five participants will be supported by Hardie Studios professional carpenters to design and build a portable community structure. Full brief available here.

The cost of the workshop is £50 (ticket includes full access to all other festival events)

The workshop is limited to 25 participants and will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.

If you would like to join us you can reserve your place by paying the £50 workshop fee below –